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Nikon D4. The new king with uncompressed HDMI output.
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  • AriaAria

    I don't know that this video alone is enough to really judge the cameras qualities on. I didn't like the Bokeh of this lens, nor the overuse of DOF. Didn't like the look of the oversharpened edges either. The Aliasing was the LEAST of my concerns and I didn't really find it to be a visual distraction as much as the other factors mentioned previously.

    To be honest, i'm more interested in how the technology will filter down into their APS-C cameras, more so than the FF body. I think APS-C has the right level of DOF for my work. Still I need more evidence of what this cameras real capabilities are before making a real judgment.

  • stoneystoney

    How can Nikon lose £4 grand if they haven't gotten anything from @eoshd yet? :)

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    Nikon just lost £4 grand from me

    I laughted very loud :-)

  • EOSHDEOSHD

    It looks bad.

    Original footage: http://www.mediafire.com/?4nla03itio1m81j

    image

    image

    Nikon just lost £4 grand from me, and I am sure I am not the only one.

  • danyyyeldanyyyel

    New video, for now I don't have any idea about the quality with that ugly ugly youtube compression. Can't these corporate shooters put in on some better place for better viewing quality. The second thing is this ultra low dof the 5d and Philip Bloom popularized, ugly, ugly distracting, fed up with those faces where just part of it are in focus. In this case as he moves many times it is his mustache that is in focus and the rest of this face blurry. When you see an interview and when the subject eyes/connection are most of the time not in focus and his mustache is!!! See some aliasing and the image seem to suffer a lot from over-sharpening/edge enhancement, don't know if it is the camera, youtube or the setting from the people that edited it.

  • last_SHIFTlast_SHIFT

  • fehafeha

    I wish that some of the features of D4 the GH2 had , :-( especially HDMI, great remote control (ipad, iphone, ...) hope Panasonic will learn something from this before they come out with GH3. Very excited!

  • RRRRRRRR

    @Aria - I've heard otherwise (that VG10 actually gives a cleaner picture than VG20/5n). I don't care too much about it though - because If any of those, I use a 5n.

  • AriaAria

    The D4 like the C300 and 1DX are only the beginning of the story as there will be a filter down effect to the rest of the lines. That's what will really be interesting. How much of the image quality will be kept down the range? Will the 5Dmk3 have a similar look to that of the 1DX? Will a new D700 also have much of the D4 IQ?

    @RRRR, the VG20 has the same sensor as the NEX-5n. The image quality is exactly the same. Same resolution, same moire and aliasing as the NEX-5n. From what I can gather it's a better cam than the VG10 in many ways besides IQ.

  • dirquedirque

    "Who leaves their camera on for sixty minutes straight without powering down for some reason? Changing cards, etc?"

    I leave my camera on for about an hour and a half at a time, but i film theater performances. So far the gh2 has yet to let me down except for clipped highlights in weird lighting situations.

  • RRRRRRRR

    Don't know why the Sony's are discussed, but I hear vg10 is better than it's successor (better sensor). Some moire, some aliasing but other than that it's very good video equipment.

    Re d4:

    From Dan Chung: "We are promised next to none of that nasty moire and aliasing"

    Well that is it, isn't it. If the Nikon scales and resolves as well as the gh2, then it will be a very popular camera indeed (even more so than what it gets from still capabilities alone). It seems like the "release of the year" is Nikon's to win - mind the products we have no idea about yet.

  • mrbillmrbill

    http://philipbloom.net/2012/01/18/nikond4/

    Link to Dan Chung piece on D4

  • kholikholi

    Who leaves their camera on for sixty minutes straight without powering down for some reason? Changing cards, etc?

    As long as you can flip it right back up then it doesn't make a difference. But if you CAN'T and you have to wait.. different story.

  • nathanpawnathanpaw

    The Live View mode flips down after 60min no matter what your doing. For example Recording, Not Recording or just hanging out live view mode.

  • AriaAria

    @jpbturbo, the Sony VG10 and VG20 are considered consumer Camcorders by Sony and to my knowledge they actually do 4:2:2 output, but some have complained that there's something weird about the HDMI output cuz they don't see much of an image improvement from the externally recorded footage. Plus there is some Aliasing and Moire, tho the Moire isn't that bad.

    From everything i've seen the VG20 has a good image. Not quite as high rez as the GH2, but not bad either. Very good Low Light and long recording time. You could do some very good films using the VG20 IMO.

    @danyyyel, from what I heard the Live View "times out" and the mirror flips back down, but you can restart the camera and continue. Not a definite on that, but that's what it appears the guy actually said.

  • danyyyeldanyyyel

    Does it need to turn down when it is using an external recorder?

  • jpbturbojpbturbo

    @aria The VG10 is only 4:2:0 right?

  • Alfi666Alfi666

    lol, wtf ... cool down time? :)... how comes that GH2 does not need one?

    How can this be considered "pro" device when it turns off the recording to cool down?

    Epic fail...

  • AriaAria

    The Sony VG10 gave it's clean HDMI out in the same way. You had to take out the Cards. The promotional video I saw looked pretty good. I don't recall seeing any Aliasing or Moire. Color looked good. Resolution looked good, but again this is on the web.

  • sebbensebben

    Sounds more than reasonable to me.

  • RRRRRRRR

    I guess the key issue, more than cooling times and other minor nuisances, is:

    How the camera scales it's images to video resolution?

    And so far there seems to be no answer to that... EOSHD claims it does it in the same way as the J1, but I haven't seen any information to confirm that?

  • nathanpawnathanpaw

    Here is some of the Nikon D4 Q/A's

    @IR_Lab Nikon D4 Question: Minimum increments of aperture change during video recording?

    (Steve Heiner) - For video, this is where the D4 will really impress. When recording to the internal memory cards, the same option to change aperture exists, changing the aperture in 1/3 stop increments. We've added a new feature called Power Aperture, in Live View mode, though: Using the Preview and Fn buttons on the front of the camera, you can smoothly and steplessly open and close the aperture in Live View mode (prior to recording). If you're recording to an outboard recorder via the HDMI port, you can do this smooth aperture change during recording. (Note that Power Aperture only works during Live View mode.)

    Is there any improvement over the D3s in terms of ISO in the range of 3200-12800?

    (SH & Lindsay Silverman, Nikon) - I can't tell you quantitatively that it's better by a given amount, but based on what I've seen from a pre-production camera it's every bit as good as what we've seen from our D3S camera, and possibly even better. The processing in this camera is the most sophisticated we've had in a camera to date. Based on the input from the photographers who shot our brochure, they were really impressed with all aspects of the camera, including shooting in low light at high ISO.

    @IR_Lab Why is the new D4 battery rated to so few shots compared to D3, D3s, D700, etc ... via @nikonrumors

    (SH) On the battery, I don't know the specifics, but do know that regulations in Japan have changed, so the maximum amount of energy that can be stored in a camera battery is less than was once allowed. The D4 is very energy efficient, though. My own experience is that the D4 performs really well in battery efficiency; I haven't felt at all limited by it.

    Can you have a histogram up in live mode?

    (LS) Yes there's a histogram in both live view for stills and live view for video and it's easily selected using the info button.

    From Pyriphlegethon: Every video enthusiast is wanting to know: How is the scale of FX video to 1080p accomplished? Is any line-skipping involved? Noticeable quality drop from the direct-pixel for pixel crop? Only an 8-bit HDMI out?

    (SH): The exact details of what we do the distilling down from FX to 1080 is proprietary at this point. I can tell you that there is also a new mode that crops the sensor to give 1080 video using actual sensor pixels. (It's about a 2.7xcrop factor, so you also get a nice "digital tele" effect; potentially handy for sports and nature photography.) (SH) Another comment on video quality is that with the EXPEED 3 processing, we're using real-time noise reduction during video recording (a first for Nikon), and we're also employing "B-frames" in the H.264 codec to improve video quality overall. This applies to all modes and crop factors.

    Why the decision not to store the still images from the timelapse feature?

    (SH) If you use the interval mode, you can save full-res images, then face a ton of post-production workflow. Intervalometer function speeds this up and automates it, but doesn't allow you to save the stills as well.?. (LS) D3 was a groundbreaking camera because subject tracking was used for the first time to track a subject's color using the 1,005 RGB sensor. D4 improves on this by using 91,000 RGB pixels to subject-track. Additionally, the 91K RGB sensor improves on auto-exposure, auto WB, and i-TTL Flash. According to the photographers who shot for our brochure, they thought the overall performance was improved.

    Do you expect to offer more video codec options, such as intraframe-only compression and possibly even uncompressed video to the XQD cards?

    (SH) - Sorry, can't speak to future products, but think that the option of offering uncompressed 4:2:2 is an important first step in placing the D4 in a professional filmmaking environment. This is an option not offered in any other HDSLR.

    Can the D4 be powered by an external battery source, like AntonBauer or V-mount?

    (SH) - You'd have to adapt it somehow, and we don't make a provision for that, so you'd have to ask those battery manufacturers. (We do provide an AC power supply that someone could probably hack something up around. - But that'd of course be an "unsupported" usage. :-)

    The D4's HDMI is 4:2:2 8bit as stated by Nikon, -but what does "uncompressed" mean? Exactly how is 1080P output via HDMI port?

    Uncompressed means that you're not using the in-camera H.264 compression, instead allowing the external device to record in the desired or supported format for editing. In order to get full 1080p output from the HDMI port for external recording, both memory cards must be removed from the camera. That's what triggers the full 1080p output from the HDMI port for recording. When recording to either of the two memory cards, the HDMI output for monitoring is only for monitoring purposes, not suitable for recording.

  • nathanpawnathanpaw

    Hopefully someone at CES can find out what the cool time is? Here is a link to the guys who hosted the Nikon D4 Q/A. http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/nikon-d4/nikon-d4A.HTM

  • Mr_MooreMr_Moore

    Well, I’m a little underwhelmed, to put it mildly. The HDMI output is 8-bit 4:2:2 but enabled only with all the cards removed, B-frame internal codec recording, 60-minute–max live-view mode due to the sensor overheating (what’s the cool-off time?) . . .

    Sounds like an oddball in the video department to me.

  • nathanpawnathanpaw

    Here is all the ? about the Nikon D4 Video settings.

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